


Man of a Worldly Mind

by literati42



Category: The Good Cop (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Bonding, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-21 20:49:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17050328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: For the Good Cop Winter Fic Challenge.Tony says something he will come to regret, as his words launch him on a journey through his past, present, and future.Prompt: The Christmas Carol





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Christmas Carol inspired prompt! Check out the tumblr for more on the challenge: https://thegoodchallenge.tumblr.com/
> 
> As always, much love to the Good Conspirators. If you want to join us in loving on this little show, let me know in the comments!

It was mean, he knew it was mean, but it was a moment of anger. Tony was called the Tiger for a reason. Sometimes when he got backed into a corner, the claws came out. It was just a moment, just a few words. It meant nothing, and he knew TJ would forgive him because TJ always forgave him, even when his words were mean.  
But on Christmas, words carry greater meaning. Tony the Tiger Caruso was about to learn this lesson well.  
“Why does this have to be a thing? Just open the present.”  
“No,” TJ said. “No. I told you not to get me anything, and I meant it.” He passed the wrapped parcel back to his father.  
“What makes you think there is anything hinky about that present?”  
“Because you don’t have any actual money since you’ve yet to get an actual job, which means whatever is in that package you got through shadier means,” TJ replied. TJ pushed the package into his arms, and his tone dropped. “I’ve had enough ill-gotten Christmas presents in my life.”  
The snow was swirling outside as Tony said the fateful words.  
“Honestly, how are we related?” Tony said. TJ let out a sigh and walked into the kitchen, leaving his line of sight. Tony raised his voice so his words would still reach his infuriating offspring. “You know what I want for Christmas? A DNA test to prove once and for all Connie was sleeping around. You’re no son of mine.”  
The snow stopped swirling.  
The stop was dramatic enough to pull Tony’s attention. He frowned, but his focus was instantly taken by the oven beeping. Beeping. Beeping. Why wasn’t TJ getting it? Tony stood and walked into the kitchen.  
The empty kitchen.  
“TJ?” Where could his son have gone that he would not have seen him? Their house was an open floor plan.  
“He’s not here, Mr. C.”  
Tony turned to find the young CSI standing beside him.  
“What do you mean? He was just talking to me…” He stopped, “How did you get in here?”  
Ryan grabbed his shoulder, and suddenly they were outside. As if they just materialized. “What the…” Tony grabbed the sides of his face, “I must have had too much eggnog.”  
“Sorry Mr. C, this is real,” Ryan said. “You got your wish.”  
“What are you talking about? I need to find TJ…”  
“TJ’s not here. This isn’t about him now. It’s about you. Your Christmas wish was to know if TJ is your real son. Now you will.”  
“You’ve always been weird, but this is a bridge too far,” Tony said.  
“It’s not a joke, Mr. C,” Ryan said. “You’re getting a gift. You get a chance to see the truth, and then you will have to make a choice.”  
Bells began to chime from the church down the street, far louder than they should have been. Tony turned to look at them, and when he looked back, Ryan was gone. “Ryan? If this is some kind of joke.”  
“This is no laughing matter.”  
Tony’s blood went cold, he turned around, his eyes wide. He knew that voice. He knew the exact look in her eyes that he would see, the way her dark hair fell across her face. He knew every line, every angle. “Connie…”  
She stood there in a white dress, it flowed like a choir robe around her, and there was sprigs of holy in her hair. He went to her, grabbed her arms and felt the solidity of her. “Connie, are you real? Are you alive?”  
“I am real,” she said, touching his face. “But I am not alive.” She tilted her head, “I am the ghost of your past. Come, we have much to see.”  
Tony rubbed his eyes, but even as he knew this could be nothing but a dream, he did not want to dispel it if it meant Connie would vanish. So, when she held out her hand, he took it. “Will you trust me?” she asked.  
“Always.”  
The world around them swirled, snow falling from the sky and kicking up from the ground by some unseen force. Tony held to Connie’s hand, but she seemed unmoved by the chaos around them.  
Suddenly, everything was different. They were still in front of their house, but Tony’s detective mind began logging changes at once. The paint looked newer. The cars on the street were different. There were several more inches of snow.  
“Connie…”  
“We’re here, Tony.”  
Tony’s eyes widened as the door opened, and a small child came running out into the snow. He had big brown puppy eyes and a mess of unruly, wavy hair. He flew a squad car toy through the air, making whirring noises with his lips. “TJ?” Tony said.  
“Welcome to your past,” said the vision of his wife.


	2. The Past and Present

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here! This story got way longer than I expected. Also angstier! Buckle in folks!
> 
> So many many thank yous to my Good Conspirators. Especially to Eienvine and AngelsAvengeMe who worked with me through a delightfully long thread to put together a comprehensive timeline for pre-show events based on the bare nuggets of info we got in season 1! Without which, this story would have been way harder to plot out. You two are a joy to know!
> 
> As always, if anyone wants to hang online with the Good Conspirators, don't hesitate to reach out
> 
> There is still time to join in on the Good Challenge Winter Fic challenge! Check out our tumblr: thegoodchallenge.tumblr.com
> 
> Also don't forget to follow me on twitter: @themythofpsyche
> 
> Okay here we go...

Tony took a few tentative steps toward the child. TJ, as this child could be no one else, came right for him without ever once looking up. Tony braced to move out of the way or catch his young son, only for TJ to walk straight through him. “What the…”  
“We are shadows to them, Tony,” Connie said. “Real to each other, but not to them.” Tony stared at her wide-eyed, then his gaze flew to the door as Connie—a much younger iteration—stepped out. “Come on, Kiddo,” she called. “Dinner time.”  
TJ stopped, lowering the car to his side and looking up at her. He had such a serious face for a child so young. It came back to Tony that he often saw that serious, thoughtful look. “Dad’s not here yet.”  
Connie nodded, her arms around herself casually as she spoke. “And it doesn’t look like he will be. The food’s getting cold.”  
“Dad said he’d be back to teach me how to ride a bike I got for Christmas. He said before dinner,” TJ said.  
“It’s an awfully cold day to learn,” Connie said, reaching out her hand to him.  
TJ’s shoulders slumped. He walked back up to his mother, who rested her hand on his head. “Come on kiddo.” The door shut behind them.  
“Remember where you were, Tony?” Connie, the ghostly one beside him, asked.  
“Remember where I was on a random day years ago?”  
“The day after Christmas,” she said, “When he was 6.”  
Tony knew, he knew the answer without pause, but he found himself giving that cat eating a canary smile, rubbing the back of his neck. “Where? You know I had a lot of cases…”  
“Maybe this will refresh your memory,” Connie said. She snapped her fingers, and the world suddenly began moving like someone fast-forwarding through scenes. Then, just like that, it was night time. He saw himself, much younger, come walking up to the house. Younger Tony began fidgeting with his keys, but the door opened before he found them. Connie looked at him, then grabbed his hand. From where he stood, Tony could see the blood and bruises on his younger self’s knuckles. “Let’s get those washed off,” young Connie said.  
“Connie…”  
She shook her head at him, “TJ’s asleep. You’re going to apologize.” She walked inside, and he followed.  
“So this is a journey into what? Making me regret the past?” Tony asked his ghostly companion. Her eyes were hard, she snapped her fingers again, and they were standing in TJ’s childhood bedroom. It was decorated in the classic primary colors. There were cop car toys lined up on the shelves, and rows of books that were pretty advanced for a six-year-old. He had a picture of his Dad right on the bedside table, and Tony saw his little son was very much still awake. The child reached over and touched the photo. “Hey, I thought you were awake.” The younger Tony’s voice said from the doorway. He walked over and took a seat on the child’s bed as his future self watched from the corner.  
“Hi, Daddy.”  
Young Tony put his hand on his son’s mop of hair. “Hey, Junior. About today…”  
“It’s okay, Daddy,” the little TJ said, “Mom told me about your really big case. Did you get the bad guy?”  
“Yeah…yeah I did,” Tony said. “You better get some rest, but we’ll do the bike tomorrow.”  
“Okay, I love you Dad.” The child pushed himself up and hugged his father tightly, and Tony saw it. He was a good detective and good at getting away with crimes, and one of the main reasons was his uncanny ability to read an expression. His little son hugged him with complete love and utter faith in the truth of his words. The scene faded away, and then he and the vision of his wife stood with him once more outside the house.  
“You were roughing up some people who didn’t pay your protection money,” she said. “And he never did learn how to ride that bike.”  
“You know,” Tony said, “This dream is getting very old.”  
The vision of Connie’s eyes were hard when she said, “This is no dream. We’ll see another Christmas.” The snow kicked up again. This time Tony braced himself for the shift, but he could not prepare himself for what he saw.  
TJ sat on the steps leading up to the house, his nose and cheeks red from cold, and a trembling blue to his lips. He was, it seemed, attempting to whittle at a piece of wood. He was 13, already tall and skinny. That serious expression was currently turned to intense focus.  
“I don’t want to see this one,” Tony said.  
“You think I do?” Connie asked, her arms crossed, “But you’re going to. Buckle up, Tony.”  
The car pulled up, and TJ was on his feet, everything else forgotten. A version of Tony, slightly older now himself, got out and swaggered to his son. “TJ!” he said, arms extended, “Junior, you’re half frozen.” Tony’s big hands landed on each of his son’s shoulders. “What are you doing out here?”  
Tears were there before words. TJ looked stricken, half with disbelief. “A woman came by the house today.”  
Young Tony was immediately worried, and his older self began to avert his eyes, but Connie was there. “Watch,” she said, and he had to. He had to do this for her, even if she was only a dream.  
He looked back and saw his younger self looking with worrying at his son’s face, but he did not need to see it. This memory was burned into his mind though he never let himself think of it. “A woman came by the house,” the teenager choked out, “She’s lying, Dad. She’s lying.”  
“Slow down. What woman? What did she say?”  
TJ did slow down, even with tears in his eyes, even with his fist curled and fingers turning blue. Even with shivers running up and down his arms. He lowered his eyes and began to recite, already showing the tendency for detail that would one day make him a good detective. “Her name was Lucy Arendale. She said she met you at a bar six months ago. She said you…” The thirteen-year-old stumbled, tilted his head awkwardly to the side, searched for a word. “were with her.”  
Older Tony watched the emotions play out on his younger self’s face, with shock, panic, and suddenly a quick grin there before TJ looked back up. “It’s a lie.”  
TJ stared into his father’s eyes and then took a startled step back. He looked like his father had struck him with those words. “You’re lying.”  
“What? One minute you’re sure it couldn’t be true, and now I’m lying?” Young Tony said, angry, defensive.  
And Tony watched those wide expressive eyes shut down, all the way. TJ locked something inside himself, and with two steps back toward the house, he turned and ran inside. “TJ wait…” young Tony called, but the scene froze.  
“You remembered this as a confrontation,” Connie said, “The first time TJ started judging you.” She looked at him, “That’s not what you saw today.”  
Tony was standing almost as still as his paused self. “He was waiting because he believed in me…he wanted to give me a chance…” Connie stepped up and snapped her fingers. “No please no more…” They were in the police barracks, set up for thecadets as they went through their training. For the first time, this scene was entirely unfamiliar to Tony, he turned around studying it. The room was incredibly neat, everything perfectly in place. There was nothing personal except a picture of TJ and Connie. It did not escape Tony’s notice that it was a picture without him in it. He froze as the door opened. TJ was younger, lankier. He looked like he was not eating quite enough. He was also limping. He dropped to sit on the bed, and Tony caught what looked like a bruise forming on his son’s chin. The young Caruso took a piece of paper out of a drawer and stared at it. Tony heard a sharp intake of breath.  
“That looks bad,” said another cadet. This one was shorter, about the same age as TJ, and Tony would guess he was Italian too. He walked over and sat on the edge of TJ’s bed. “Another ‘training accident’?” He asked poking at the bruise on TJ’s face.  
TJ pushed his hand away and held up a finger, “It was an infraction…” he closed his eyes, “Not that anyone will do anything. When I’m a detective…”  
“When you’re running the place, you won’t let this kind of thing slide,” said the other. “What’s that?” The cadet reached across TJ, trying to grab the paper. TJ pushed at him, but the other young cadet grabbed it and sat back. “Wow…very official.”  
“Teddy…”  
“You going to actually go through with it?” he held up the paper, eyes boring into TJ, and Tony got his first view of the document. An official legal form to change a name.  
“I thought about Mom’s maiden name, but her family isn’t a part of our lives, and…she would hate that.”  
“And we don’t cross Connie Caruso,” Teddy said, his tone solemn. “So what are the other options?”  
“I thought…Churchill.”  
Teddy laughed, “Wow, so you want to step out of one legacy by stepping into another because…”  
“Churchill was a noble man,” TJ said, looking honestly affronted.  
“He was no saint…” Teddy’s eyes lit up, “Anthony Saint!” he motioned like he was presenting a billboard. “It tells you what you need to know.” TJ snatched the paper back and glared.  
“Are you here as support or to be more of a problem?”  
Teddy held up his hands in defense. “So, other options?”  
TJ shook his head, laying down the paper. “I thought of a few, but there’s also the fact that if someone asks what TJ stands for I have to say Anthony Junior, and then it is…oh, Junior to who?”  
“Not the easiest legacy to untangle.”  
“They would all just be running,” he replied. TJ sighed, staring up at the ceiling.  
“Have you gone to visit him?”  
“Are you suggesting I’m doing a lot of running?” TJ said.  
His friend shrugged lightly, “Teej, it’s not an infraction to cut off people who are toxic for you.” TJ pushed off the bed, shaking his head.  
“I can’t. Stop visiting, change my name, move away. None of it is going to make any difference on the one important and undeniable fact I can’t avoid. He’s my father and, even though it would be easier if I didn’t, I love him.”  
Connie clicked her fingers, and the scene was gone. Tony stood there staring at if he could see back into that moment. “He started visiting me soon after when that must have been. I knew he had trouble with the cops now because of his stick in the mud ways, but I never knew anything about how he was treated because of me…” Connie rested a hand on his shoulder and, dream or not, he felt the weight of it. He closed his eyes. This time, he felt the room shift around him, but he did not watch it spiral.  
He opened his eyes to the All City Homicide Unit desks. There were holiday decorations around the bullpen. There was his son, looking nearly the same age as now, standing by the window watching it snow. Tony saw pain etched into every line of TJ’s face. He did not think there was ever a time when TJ looked so defeated, so lost. He took an automatic step forward, wanting to hug him, to comfort him, but his hand went straight through his son’s shoulder. He pulled back, only for another hand to fall on his son’s shoulder instead.  
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Burl said, his tone staying level but his eyes betraying his worry. TJ turned to his partner and nodded.  
“He’s my father,” was all he said. The two walked out, and Tony followed. He floated into the back seat of the squad car with Connie. The two detectives said nothing on the drive, and Tony kept looking at Connie. What was he supposed to learn from this? They weren’t even speaking. But she kept staring dead ahead, wordless herself, so he focused back on TJ. He watched his strong, reliable, solid rock of a son struggle to compose himself. He was so intent on watching this that he did not realize they were going to the prison until they stopped there. TJ got out of the car, straightened his tie, and all of the pain and anguish left his face, buried as if under a layer of snow. He walked inside looking confident and steady.  
“This was right after she died, after you died. The first Christmas after,” Tony said, realizing it at once. He looked at Connie. “Wasn’t it?” She nodded. Tony watched his son disappear into the prison to visit him. “We got into a fight,” he remembered. “He was so composed I…I just lashed out.” Connie watched him, allowing him to find his own conclusions. “He did that for me?” Tony ran a hand over his face. “I never even asked him what he did for Christmas. I never asked him…all those years without me, without Connie…”  
“He wasn’t alone,” Connie said, “Sometimes Burl took him home for Christmas, sometimes Captain Delghetty and her wife brought him for Christmas with their girls. Later, when Ryan joined the unit, they did a big Christmas Eve dinner at TJ’s house. There was always someone looking out for him, even when you weren’t.”  
Tony closed his eyes. “I never once thought to ask…”  
“I never cheated on you, Tony,” Connie said. His eyes snapped open, staring at her in utter confusion. “He’s your blood, your DNA.”  
“I never really thought you did,” Tony replied. “It’s just how could…” He paused, Tony the Tiger Caruso’s insecurity, the fuel behind all that bluster, showed behind his eyes. “How could someone so good come from someone like me?”  
“He did,” she said. “But, it isn’t his DNA that makes him your son. That isn’t what makes family family.”  
Tony closed his eyes, letting her words sink in. When he opened his eyes he was in a new location. The place where Connie died. A newspaper blew by his feet and he saw at once that he was back almost to the moment of their fight. It was Christmas Eve, this same year, and TJ walked up to the pole to replace Connie’s flowers. He placed his hand on the cold metal. “I’m trying to look out for him, Mom,” he said to the air. “I’m trying.” He shook his head. “I’m doing the best I can.”  
“I get the picture, Connie,” Tony said, turning around, but the ghostly visage of his wife was not there. He looked all around him. When he looked back toward the pole, TJ was gone too. There were cars passing, and some people walking their dogs, but no one could see him. It was Christmas eve, mere hours before he had yet another vicious fight with his son, and he was entirely, completely on his own. “Connie! Connie! Don’t leave me here alone!”


	3. The Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We decided to keep the challenge rolling on to warm our hearts during this cold wintery months! If you want to join in, it now goes through February 1st. Check out the challenge here at: thegoodchallenge.tumblr.com

Tony sunk to his knees, feeling desperate. Then a pair of black combat boots came into view. “Feeling sorry for yourself, Tony?”  
He looked up at Detective Cora Vasquez, standing with arms crossed, and looking very much his parole officer once again. Tony shot to his feet. “You’re here? Am I awake?”  
“It’s not over yet,” she said, “Looks like I’m your future.”  
“Why would you be my future?” Tony asked. She gave the slightest smile and lifted her hand, showing an engagement ring.  
“I’m not exactly the Cora you know…I am the Cora that could be. She could have a lot to do with your family’s future.” She tapped her name on her badge, and he saw at once that she was not detective Vasquez, not anymore. It read Caruso.   
“You and TJ?”  
“Come on, Tony. There’s more you need to see.”   
Tony shook his head. “No, Cora, I’m done. I don’t want to see any more.”  
She turned around with that familiar expression, the one she had on her face that day she informed him he was moving in with his son and he was getting a job, or else. “Yes you are.”  
Tony let out a frustrated sound. “It was just words. How has it I deserve all of this? Dredging up the past I can’t change. Now what? You show me some dramatic future and I have a midnight on Christmas confessional? Swear to be a better man.” He put his hand over his heart.   
“Don’t lash out at me because your feeling guilty.”  
“It was just words,” Tony said. “TJ knows I don’t mean them. He knows I’m proud of him. He’ll forgive me and everything will go back to normal like it always does.”  
She shook her head back and forth. “You still don’t get it, do you?”  
“I talk. We talk. We say things we don’t mean. It’s part of who we are. You can’t change an old dog.”  
“You mean you don’t want to change,” Cora replied, that judgmental look he was so familiar with in her eyes.  
“I’ve said words before and never been haunted by ghosts.”  
“Today is different.” Cora shook her head, “You need to understand.”   
The snow began to swirl at their feet, the sky shifting, clouding over. The air shifted, sending a chill straight through him. Instead of a street, Tony found himself beside a wrought iron gate, looking into a field of evenly spaced concrete slabs that jutted out of the ground like the maw of some enormous beast. “This? Really? You think I haven’t seen the Christmas Carol?” Tony asked, turning to Cora. “You think I don’t know this scene? You’re going to show me my grave, and I’ll be a changed man. I got news for you, sister, this isn’t a play.” For once, Cora did not speak. She merely raised her hand and pointed. “What if I just don’t go look? What will you do?” Her hand stayed pointed, her eyes staring straight ahead. “Fine. I’ll get it over with.” Tony began walking over there, “Here lies Anthony Caruso, Sr. Beloved, etc? Right?” he said to her over his shoulder as he walked up to the tombstone she indicated, the one beside where Connie was buried.  
His heart missed a beat.  
The tombstone read Anthony Caruso, as he guessed, but etched into the cold stone was two letters that drained all the blood from his face.  
A “J” and an “r.”  
Tony’s knees hit the cold snow, his hand touching the etching as if he could wipe the letters away. “TJ.” His breath shuddered, “It’s today.” He looked up at her, shaking his head in disbelief. “How? Why?” Cora was silent, watching him without moving closer. “It’s a trick, right? You show me his death so I’ll appreciate him? I appreciate him. I love him. He’s my son. Now make it stop.”   
“I can’t,” Cora said.  
Tony stood up, blood rushing back to his face. “I swear I’ll never say anything like that again. Now make it stop!”   
“I can’t,” Cora said again. “It’s not a trick. He really died.”  
“Yeah?” Tony said, his voice snapping at her as he got into her airspace. “You going to explain how my son died on Christmas day because of an argument?”  
“He caught a case,” Cora replied, “He left the house angry, still thinking about those just words. He was distracted, and he caught a bullet.” She tapped her chest, right over her heart, “Right, here.” She shook her head, and he saw in her eyes pain, raw, wretched pain. “You didn’t say it. You never said it, and he died.”  
“I didn’t say it?”  
“You forgot. You were so angry you let him leave the house, and you forgot. You didn’t say it.”  
“Cora, I’ve never been good at riddles. Say what?”  
Beep. Beep.  
The noise penetrated the graveyard air. The sound of an oven. The world around him shifted quickly, and then suddenly went still, like a car slamming on its breaks. Tony was in the house again, the oven beeping from the kitchen. He took a few steps forward. The beeping stopped just as he came around the corner to see.  
TJ, pulling cookies out of the oven.   
Tony exhaled as if he never had before. “You’re here.”  
His son looked up and furrowed his brow. “Of course I’m still here. I don’t just stop existing when you’re mad at me,” He replied, and then added under his breath, “Or I would not exist most of the time.” He sat the cookie tray down and turned off the oven. Tony was across the room in a moment, pulling his son into a hug. Until TJ stopped him with a hand on his chest and pushed him away. “Stop. You always do that.” His voice cracked with anger. “You always say horrible things and then go all affectionate. ‘I love you son.’ Just don’t. Save it.”   
“Anthony…”   
TJ lifted a hand, the gesture subtle but speaking volumes. His son was furious. TJ’s phone rang, puncturing whatever Tony was about to say.   
“No!” Tony said. TJ flinched away from the phone as if it was going to bite him.  
“What?”  
“Don’t answer it.”  
“It’s Captain Delghetty,” TJ said now, picking up the phone and showing his father the ID.   
“It’s Christmas,” Tony said. “You’re not even catching.”  
“She wouldn’t be calling from her nice family Christmas with Teresa and the girls if it wasn’t important.” TJ clicked the phone on. “Hello? Yes. Yes. Understood, I’ll be right there.” The phone was barely clicked off before Tony spoke.  
“You can’t go.”  
TJ was staring at him. “What is going on with you?” he untied the apron from around his waist and began heading for the stairs.  
“TJ! Something terrible is going to happen if you go.”  
His son stopped with one foot on the steps, lowered it back to the floor and turned to him slowly. His eyes had their detective look.  
“Did you have something to do with this case?”  
“What? No!”  
“Then how do you know anything about it?”  
Tony floundered for words. “I…had a premonition.”  
TJ blinked at him. “A premonition?”  
“Something bad is going to happen. You’re going to get hurt.”  
TJ rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t, even know how to process this conversation.” He shook his head, “I have a job to do. There are lives at risk.” He headed up the stairs.   
Tony stayed at the foot of them, his heart pounding loud enough he heard it in his ears. “Cora? Cora?” he whispered into the air. “What did I forget? Cora? What did I forget to say?” He felt fresh waves of panic rolling up and down him.   
TJ came back down, dressed for work now, but Tony blocked his way. “Dad,” he said.  
“I can’t let you go.”  
TJ sidestepped him, shaking his head. “I really hope you had nothing to do with this.” He was heading for the door and Tony could not think of a single thing he could say to fix this. TJ was walking straight into danger, into death. There was nothing Tony could say. Nothing, except…  
It hit him like a brick. “TJ! Wear your vest!”  
There must have been something in his tone that cut through the waves of anger and distrust, because TJ stopped and turned around, his brow furrowed.  
“Swear on your sweet mother’s soul you’ll wear your vest.”  
TJ gave one sharp nod. “I swear.” Then he grabbed his jacket off the hook and headed out the door.  
_-_-_  
Time passed with assaultive slowness. Tony paced the floor, waiting, desperate for even one word. The self-doubt, so unfamiliar to his nature, crept in. Maybe he should have handcuffed his son to the banister until the threat passed. Maybe he should have told him everything, spelled it out from beginning to end.  
Maybe he should have said he was sorry.  
A knock on the door startled him out of his reverie. He sprinted over and pulled it open. Burl Loomis stood on his doorstep, and there was blood on his tan shirt.  
“He’s alive,” Burl said before any other words passed his lips. “he got shot, he caught a bullet in the leg, and also the chest but luckily, he was wearing his vest.”  
Tony grabbed the door frame to steady himself. “He’s going to live?”  
“He’s going to live.”  
_-_-_  
Tony was watching his son sleep. TJ had yet to wake up after his time in surgery. Burl was on a coffee walk—he did not do coffee runs—with Ryan. Cora, the present day Cora Vasquez, was walking her nervous tension out in the halls.  
It was just Tony, watching his son sleep, and then he saw those eyelashes flutter open. “Hey…” he said, leaning forward. “Hey, buddy.”  
TJ cleared his dry throat, eyes trying to focus. “Dad?”  
“Hey, listen, you’re going to be okay. They got the bullet out of your leg and the vest…” Tony choked on the words slightly, “The vest saved your life.” He rested his hand on his son’s arm. “TJ…Anthony…son,” he said, looking into those confused eyes. “I love you. And I am proud of you. You are a thousand times the man I ever was. And if I ever, ever make you doubt any of that…” he hung his head, “Then I’ve failed.”  
“It’s okay, Dad,” TJ said, his words a bit slurred. He pulled his arm free to pat his father’s hand awkwardly. “It’s okay.”  
Tony squeezed his son’s arm. “I love you. I love you, son.”  
TJ’s smile was loopy at the edges, but genuine. “I love you, Dad.” He fell back to sleep almost at once, and Tony stayed there, holding on to his son’s arm, and watching over him, through the long Christmas night.


End file.
